From the cover
Lone Star Family Health Center expands in Conroe
BY LIZZY SPANGLER
The overview
LSFHC broke ground in 2023 on the expansion project—which also included renovations for around 19,000 square feet of existing space—and completed it this May, Harwell said. Now the health center has six individual medical clinics under its one roof alongside other services such as dental, pharmacy, and X-ray and lab services. “It’s mostly tied to when we have folks at a satellite location that may need to come here for our pharmacy, come here for dental,” Harwell said. “Now there’s many more people that are coming from all across the county … to this central location.” Part of the expansion process included doubling the health center’s OB-GYN team, bringing it to four full-time OB-GYNs. Harwell said LSFHC— which helps deliver around 600 babies per year—can now address high-risk pregnancy needs in-house rather than referring patients out. Courtney Galle, LSFHC’s marketing and communications manager, said the expansion helps the Conroe location be a one-stop shop. “Go see your family medicine provider, maybe you need a dental cleaning, and then pick up a prescription,” Galle said. “Where else can you really do that all in one?”
Lone Star Family Health Center’s expansion
Lone Star Family Health Center, 2024 visits
Nutrition: 0.27%
Increased from 70K sq. ft. to just under 100K sq. ft. 24K new square feet of space 19K square feet of existing space renovated Expansion includes:
Behavioral health: 4.05% Woman's health: 9.31% Dental: 9.41%
Additional medical exam rooms
Larger parking lot
A dedicated mental health suite
Second pharmacy
Family medicine: 76.96%
Expanded patient intake area
A dedicated space for women’s health care
SOURCE: LONE STAR FAMILY HEALTH CENTER COMMUNITY IMPACT
Before you go
Zooming out
As part of the expansion, LSFHC also opened a second pharmacy this spring for its Medicaid patients that anyone— regardless of insurance status—can use. Harwell said the health center did that because the state does not pay a health center for Medicaid prescriptions, so LSFHC either had to ll those prescriptions for free at their existing pharmacy or send Medicaid patients to outside pharmacies. “It’s just like a Kroger, just like an H-E-B. … It just happens to be in our building,” Harwell said. Last year, the nonpro t received $1.6 million in grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration, which Harwell said allows LSFHC to enhance cancer screening and referral rates, and expand its behavioral health services. Additionally, 12 new medical school graduates came to the health center this June.
Harwell said LSFHC’s expansion cost around $10 million, and the nonpro t used a combination of existing cash reserves, grant funding and loans to fund it. Jana Eubank, the CEO of the Texas Association of Community Health Centers, said health centers typically use a combination of various resources to fund their expansions. “[Health centers] have to look at a lot of di er- ent things, make a lot of calculations. They cobble it together and make it happen,” Eubank said. The Conroe-area nonpro t is one of 77 federally quali ed health centers in the state of Texas, per TACHC’s May 2025 fact sheet. FQHCs provide com- prehensive medical care to all Texans regardless of insurance status or income level. Without health centers like LSFHC, patients may wait until a condition is an emergency to get care, Eubank said. “They tend to forgo getting care, particularly preventative primary care, and they wait and go to the hospital, which is really the most expensive way to access care,” Eubank said.
“When you look at us as a whole and everything that we do, the
main goal is … we can keep the costs down for our patients and for taxpayers.” KAREN HARWELL, CEO, LONE STAR FAMILY HEALTH CENTER
Per TACHC’s fact sheet, it costs an average of $1,324 annually per patient for all health center services. Patients do shoulder some costs for receiving care; however, depending on insurance status and eligibility, they may be eligible for free or discounted services, per LSFHC’s website. “It’s a lot easier logistically to get to [health cen- ters], and because we provide such comprehensive services, they’re going to be able to access not only their medical care, but dental, behavioral health, pharmacy,” Eubank said.
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CONROE MONTGOMERY EDITION
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